2nd Bill of Rights

For those of you not familiar, in the 1940s FDR proposed a 2nd Bill of Rights in a speech. It has since been praised by many liberals, including Cass Sunstein, Obama's new regulatory "czar". These are the new rights FDR proposed:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living
4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
5. The right of every family to a decent home
6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
8. The right to a good education

Let's just discuss a few of these: Rights 1-3. How would the government do this? You can't guarantee a job for everyone. It isn't possible. Unemployment has never been at 0% and it can't be. Then he suggests we regulate how much money people make and receive for their services.

In other words: No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you try, no matter how good of investments you make or how fiscally responsible you are, you won't do any better than the high school drop out who doesn't care about work or progressing this country's industry. Not to mention, how would the money come to guarantee these incomes and these jobs? Well, it would have to be taxed, and it couldn't be taxed from the middle class or the lower class, because that might infringe upon their right to "earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation". So it would be taken from the upper class. The upper class then would be carrying the middle, lower, and extremely poor classes. This would help even everyone out: The upper class would lower to a middle type class, and the lower class would raise to the middle type class. Or, businesses would be taxed, although again this could create problems: If a company is taxed too much it may not be able to pay its employees enough to "earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation", so taxing the upper class is the most likely scenario.

However, this would bankrupt the country. Let's say there's a CEO of an organization making $1 million a year. He worked hard to get to a good school and worked for years to get up to the top of the company, finally making CEO. He's 55 years old and is finally getting paid for his hard work. Suddenly, the 2nd bill of rights comes in. He is now responsible for helping the low classes, who are in the low class for various reasons: unfortunate circumstances, job loss, or laziness. So he is getting taxed majorly. Maybe 75, 85 percent of his income. And it would have to be at least that much, because the top 1-3 percent are supporting all the lower class. So his $1 million dollar salary comes out to 150,000 to 250,000 a year. Yet, he's working harder than almost everyone in the country. But he sees that no matter how hard he works, its not getting any better. He's not making more money, there is no incentive to work harder. He could get an easier job making 500,000 a year and coming out with 100,000 or 150,000 after taxes. Pretty soon, all the upper class realize this, and decide to take easier jobs, or not work as hard.

You see, companies make billions of dollars because of this: They have people who work hard and put in the hours for flights, meetings, business transactions. They spend time working on new products, marketing, all these things. Sometimes they're dishonest, yes, but this is not always the case, and regardless they still have hard workers in their company.

So rather than the country benefiting from all the work the upper class's income, the upper class realize they don't need to work, because they aren't making the money they should, a some guy off the street who may of never had a job in his life because he's too lazy all of the sudden is making $75,000 a year because the government gave it to him.

What does this mean? The innovators, the people who have worked to make businesses function, who make new products, who work internationally, loose all incentive. So the country collapses because there are no more people running these businesses, or the people who are running them don't have what it takes.

Number 4 is stupid. I don't know how FDR though that he could regulate a global market but if he thought he could he was an idiot.

Number 6 is a blog entry in itself.

Number 7 is also stupid. How did FDR propose to end old age death? Or accidents?

I would like to know more about what he thought about #8. Did he think everyone should get into Harvard? Or did he think everyone should be able to get into a public high school?

Yet this is prevalant liberal thought. Most liberals will say "No it's not, that's ridiculous, don't pin that on us." Really? What is the healthcare bill you're trying to pass? Sounds like #6 to me. #1 and #3 sounds like what's happened with the bailouts lately. Not to mention we just raised minimum wage which many republicans are opposed to. That sounds like #2. (Minimum wage raising is another blog entry)

And now there's people in Obama's administration who think this is a great idea (along with a lot of liberals). It is impractical and won't work.

By the way, it sounds an awful lot like communism. The government dictating the economy, businesses, and there being a redistribuiton of wealth. How did that go for the U.S.S.R.? It collapsed on itself. All throughout school my teachers told me: Socialism and communism are a good theory, but will never work. I disagree that it's good in theory, but I agree that it'll never work.

So I'm curious why so many people are in support of this.